Israel update: death penalty law, Iran attacks

Summary

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Front Burner (CBC)

Episode: Israel update: death penalty law, Iran attacks

Date: April 7, 2026
Host: Jamie Poisson
Guest: Mehron Rapoport (Israeli journalist, editor at Local Call)

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Episode Overview

This episode provides an in-depth update on the rapidly evolving Israeli conflicts on multiple fronts: the ongoing escalation with Iran, military action in Lebanon, settler violence in the West Bank, humanitarian conditions in Gaza, and the recent passage of Israel's controversial death penalty law. Veteran Israeli journalist Mehron Rapoport dissects the motivations, public sentiment, and shifting strategies behind Israel’s recent military and legal maneuvers, offering perspective on how these developments impact both local and regional stability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Israeli Strikes on Iran: Motives and Public Sentiment

• Summary: Israel has intensified targeted assassinations and airstrikes against Iranian officials and infrastructure, but the underlying goals are murky—even to many Israelis.
• Details:
  • Over the weekend, Israel killed a top IRGC intelligence chief and hit more than 100 targets (00:38–02:24).
  • Rapoport: The Israeli military claims operational freedom in Iran, but clarity about the intended endgame is lacking. There’s confusion behind the public rhetoric, especially as objectives like regime change remain elusive.

    "It's really not very clear and I think although the army boasts that it is acting without almost any resistance and that it is controlling the airspace over Iran...[but] it is not quite very clear what the goals are." (02:38)

  • US plans for widespread infrastructure strikes in Iran under President Trump are discussed, with mixed views about whether this would be a decisive game changer, or escalate regional violence (03:29–08:20).
    • Rapoport: Believes such attacks are likely to harden Iranian resolve and widen regional conflict, potentially involving Yemeni Houthis and threatening global shipping routes.

Notable Quote:

"If I have to assess, I don't think that...attacks on the power plants will force Iran to surrender. It will quite probably lead Iran to intensify its attacks on our facilities in the region."
— Mehron Rapoport (08:20)

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2. Shifting Israeli Public Opinion

• Summary: Early support for the war is waning amidst uncertainty, fatigue, and mounting losses.
• Details:
  • Less than half the population believes toppling the Iranian regime is achievable.

    "The support is high, but it is going down at the same time. When Israelis are asked...to achieve the goals set in the beginning...we are under 50%." (04:08)

  • Israelis feel increasingly left in the dark by their government about true objectives and military planning (04:58–06:32).

Memorable Moment:

"For me, like a citizen...they didn't tell the people in Israel what they do. So all the time you are, you don't know what will be tomorrow." (04:58)

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3. Military Expansion in Lebanon: Gaza Tactics Repeat

• Summary: Israel has expanded military action into southern Lebanon, displacing huge numbers and drawing comparisons to tactics used in Gaza.
• Details:
  • Israel aims to take control up to the Litani River (~10% of Lebanon) and is pushing Shia Muslims out while allowing Christians and Druze to remain (10:23–10:59).
  • Heavy civilian casualties: 1,400 killed, many children.
  • Rapoport draws historical comparisons, describing the strategy as “Genghis Khan policy”—total destruction and forced displacement, previously seen in Gaza.

    "I wrote a piece...about the Genghis Khan policy of Netanyahu. Israel is adopting the methods of Genghis Khan" (11:42)

  • Current military leaders acknowledge ethnic cleansing won’t truly end missile threats unless all of Lebanon is occupied—a move currently seen as extreme but not dismissed outright by some (14:52–15:44).

Notable Quote:

"...Israel conducted a policy that is blatant war crime. I think it strengthened the accusation that it is committing a genocide because it's destroyed whole cities..."
— Mehron Rapoport (12:18)

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4. IDF Manpower and "Super Sparta" Strategy

• Summary: Concerns escalate about the sustainability of Israeli military operations on multiple fronts amid severe manpower shortages.
• Details:
  • Debate over ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) military service reflects wider domestic strains.

    "It's not clear if...Zamir said [manpower risks] was part of this internal political issue, but...it certainly represents a problem." (16:43)

  • Netanyahu’s ideology, labeling Israel as “Super Sparta,” denotes a society mobilized primarily for perpetual war and self-reliance in the face of international isolation.

    "...the goal of the society, that this society is being proved, prove itself when it is going to war." (19:40)

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5. The New Death Penalty Law: Apartheid Allegations

• Summary: Israel passes a law enabling the death penalty, widely viewed as targeting Palestinians.
• Details:
  • The law applies to Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis “as a Jewish state.”

    "...it is written that the death penalty will be applied only to those acting against Israel as a Jewish state. ...there's no other word than apartheid." (20:57)

  • Israeli opposition parties also supported the measure, reflecting a rightward shift in political culture.
  • National Security Minister Ben-Gvir celebrated the law, symbolizing further normalization of extreme punitive policies.

    "This is, there's no other word than apartheid. Israel always fought this definition of apartheid, but there's really no other way to describe it now." (22:17)

  • Rapoport adds: the law contradicts long-held Jewish values and marks a new level of legal discrimination.

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6. Spike in West Bank Settler Violence

• Summary: A record surge in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian communities, with hundreds of incidents and multiple deaths.
• Details:
  • At least seven Palestinians killed by settlers in March (highest monthly toll in years); 36,000 displaced.
  • Rapoport: Ethnic cleansing tactics used officially in Gaza are being "privatized" by settlers in the West Bank, often enabled by the IDF (25:06).

    “The ethnic cleansing was privatized.” (25:06)

  • Recent attacks have even targeted IDF soldiers and Christian communities, prompting U.S. pressure and a rare Israeli media shift labeling settler groups as "terrorists"—a designation usually reserved for Palestinians (27:39).

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7. Gaza: Unstable Ceasefire and Humanitarian Crisis

• Summary: Amid a fragile ceasefire, Israel continues strikes; humanitarian conditions remain dire.
• Details:
  • Over the weekend, Israeli airstrikes killed at least four more Palestinians (28:28).
  • Public and political exhaustion with indefinite conflict is growing, but Netanyahu’s political standing is paradoxically weak.

    "...the acceptance of his ideology and strategy is not translated to political power or to political support. This is quite peculiar..." (29:00)

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Notable Quotes

• On war aims:

  "People...are asking when will it end?" — Mehron Rapoport (04:08)

• On new military tactics:

  "...Israel conducted a policy that is blatant war crime... it is copying these methods to Lebanon. And this is the idea..." — Mehron Rapoport (12:18)

• On the political mood:

  "The law says [death penalty applies] to those acting against Israel as a Jewish state...there's no other word than apartheid." (20:57, 22:17)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:38 – Episode setup: broad context of Israel's military action on multiple fronts.
• 02:08 – Details of Israeli strike killing Iran IRGC intelligence chief.
• 04:08 – Rapoport on waning public support and war fatigue inside Israel.
• 07:32 – Discussion on mooted U.S./Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure, and their possible consequences.
• 10:23 – Israeli invasion/displacement strategy in southern Lebanon.
• 11:42 – Rapoport's "Genghis Khan policy" argument.
• 16:43 – Debates over IDF manpower and ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) enlistment.
• 20:27 – Passage and meaning of Israel’s new death penalty law.
• 25:06 – Rise of privatized settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
• 28:28 – Unstable ceasefire and ongoing tragedy in Gaza.
• 29:00 – Paradox of strong public support for policy but weak support for Netanyahu personally.

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Episode Tone

The conversation is urgent, analytical, and at times somber, reflecting the confusion and anxiety prevalent within Israeli society and the profound humanitarian impacts experienced throughout the region. Rapoport is direct and critical, especially about Israeli policy shifts, legal developments, and the normalization of hardline strategies.

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For Further Listening

This summary captures the episode's insights on Israel's military strategy, internal pressures, legal developments, and the regional fallout, offering a comprehensive update for listeners needing context without exposure to repetitive media sound bites.

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Transcript

[Jamie Poisson]

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[Podcast Host / Narrator]

This is a CBC podcast.

[Jamie Poisson]

Hey everybody, I'm JB Poisson. As the US And Iran ratchet up the threats to take the war into an even more violent stage, and as a last ditch attempt at a ceasefire continues today on the show, we are going to focus on Israel, a country fighting on many fronts at the moment. Israel has continued over the weekend to take out key Iranian leaders and hit over a hundred targets in Iran. They have invaded southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, settler violence in the west bank has increased. In Gaza, there remains an unstable ceasefire in a critical humanitarian situation. Israel has also passed a controversial death penalty law that human rights groups say will apply exclusively to Palestinians. There's a lot going on, so we wanted to check in with Israeli journalist Mehron Rapoport. Mehron has been reporting on Israel for over 30 years and was formerly the head of news at Israel's Haaretz newspaper. He is now an editor with the Hebrew language news site Local Call. Mehron. Thank you so much for making the time.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Thank you for having me.

[Jamie Poisson]

Let's start with the latest from the war. On Monday, Israel carried out a strike that killed the intelligence chief of the irgc, the latest in a number of assassinations of Iran's most senior officials.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

I was updated by the chief of staff that overnight in Tehran, the IDF eliminated Maajid Kahademi, head of the IRGC intelligence organization, one of those directly responsible for these war crimes and one of the three most senior figures in the organization.

[Jamie Poisson]

Israel has continued to carry out airstrikes across Iran, including targeting a series of petrochemical complexes. Can you tell me more about what Israel is trying to accomplish in Iran?

[Mehron Rapoport]

It's really not very clear and I think although the army boasts that it is acting without almost any resistance and that it is controlling the airspace over Iran and in acting freely it is not quite very clear what the goals are. Yes, Israel continue to target senior officials in the Iranian regime. It is bombing infrastructure and it is presumably going to act with President Trump on attacking the power plants on Wednesday morning, according to our time. And in Iran, he said Tuesday will

[Various Quoted Officials]

be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran, there will be nothing like it. Open the and that's where the president uses an expletive straight, you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump a move that

[Mehron Rapoport]

probably could be some kind of a game changer.

[Jamie Poisson]

What's the feeling amongst the Israeli population about the war a month in? Like, just how widespread is support for what Israel is doing now?

[Mehron Rapoport]

The support is high, but it is going down at the same time. And when you are asked, when Israelis are asked whether it is reasonable, feasible to achieve the goals set in the beginning, like toppling the regime in Iran, we are under 50%. So I think there is a change. There is a fatigue in the Israeli public. People also analysts, but certainly people on the street are asking when will it end?

[Jamie Poisson]

I just hope it ends soon. I don't know, it just seems a little chaotic still and a bit like quarantine and war together.

[Mehron Rapoport]

And where are the goals and what are the goals?

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

For me, like a citizen, I don't know, I'm not in the government. I don't know exactly what they are deciding and they didn't tell the, the people in Israel what they do. So all the time you are, you don't know what, what will be tomorrow.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Israel is quite understood, quite. They were told that the aim and that they expect that Israel expected the regime will fall quite soon after that. That did not materialize. This goal is less and less mentioned and nuclear capability was hit already in June. But we know that the uranium, during which uranium itself is hidden somewhere and at the moment there is no real plan to take it. So it stays in Iran and the missile program is maybe hit. But the results we see every day that Iran after six weeks is still firing missiles and hitting infrastructure, hitting Haifa. Yesterday there were four people killed in an attack.

[Jamie Poisson]

Hours of searching through the rubble to recover bodies after an Iranian missile hit

[Various Quoted Officials]

Haifa in northern Israel.

[Jamie Poisson]

But people here are also searching for

[Various Quoted Officials]

answers about why Israel's advanced air defense systems failed to intercept this missile.

[Mehron Rapoport]

The situation is it's not clear what are the goals and the goal, the main goal is now opening the Strait of Hormuz, which were, which was of course open before the war. And in any case it's not really an Israeli issue. It's a world issue. It's an issue for world economy. It's an issue for the Gulf countries. It's an issue for Asia, for India, for Japan, for South Korea, for Israel, it's less of an issue. So I think people are quite confused.

[Jamie Poisson]

You mentioned earlier that Israel will presumably support the United States in attacking power plants as per Trump's threat. Right. I guess unless this kind of last ditch attempt at a ceasefire is reached. You said that it would be a game changer. And just briefly, I wonder if you could elaborate for me on what you mean by that.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Well, I'm not sure that it will be a game changer, but it certainly is portrayed like this first of all by Trump himself. These strikes on the power plant will be the decisive blow that will lead Iran to surrender.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

We have a plan because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o' clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12 o' clock. And it'll happen over a period of four hours. If we wanted to, we don't want that.

[Mehron Rapoport]

If I have to assess, I don't think that it will be that these attacks on the power plants will force Iran to surrender. It will quite probably lead Iran to intensify its attacks on our facilities in the region in the Gulf. It will maybe that it will lead the Houthis in Yemen, the allies of Iran, to close the Bab El Mandeb Straits that are leading into the Red Sea in even more important waterway, even more important than the Strait of Hormuz. So I think what we are seeing now up till now is Iranian leadership, even more determined, feels, or at least gives the feeling that it is the winning side. It may be complete propaganda, but certainly reading statement by Iranian leaders, especially Kalibaf,

[Various Quoted Officials]

well, the speaker of Iran's parliament has also responded to Trump. In a social media post, Mohammed Bagheir Galiboff wrote, quote, your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living hell for every single family. And our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu's commands. Make no mistake, you won't gain anything through war crimes.

[Mehron Rapoport]

And comparing them to the statement by Trump, you see a side that is at least shows self confident Iranian and the other side showing signs of distress and pressure.

[Jamie Poisson]

Meanwhile, Israel has been increasing its attacks on Lebanon in areas where Hezbollah holds control as well as areas where they don't. More than a million people have been displaced in the war. They have invaded southern Lebanon.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Israel's defense minister says his forces will take full control of the south in the area up to the litany river, about 10% of Lebanon. He says border homes will be destroyed just like in Gaza, and that Israel won't leave until threats posed by Hezbollah against Israel are removed.

[Jamie Poisson]

I think it's worth mentioning. According to reporting in the New York Times, Israel is pushing Shia Muslims out of southern Lebanon, but is telling Christians and Druze they can stay. Since early March, more than 1400 people have reportedly been killed, including many children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. As the conflict enters its sixth week, civilians are increasingly being caught in the fight. Some attacks have even killed entire families. Officials don't differentiate between combatant and civilian deaths, but they estimate roughly 25% of them are children, paramedics and women. Mehron, you know, how would you describe what is happening in Lebanon right now?

[Mehron Rapoport]

I wrote a piece in local college about the Genghis Khan policy of Netanyahu. A week ago in a press conference,

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Yahoo said, well, history proves that unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good, aggression will overcome moderation.

[Mehron Rapoport]

This, I claimed in my piece, was not a flip of the tongue, although he apologized later and said that he didn't want to denigrate Jesus Christ. Of course, it's quite obvious that the last thing that Netanyahu needs now is to fight with the evangelical base in the Republican Party. But I think it represents a real strategy of Israel. Israel is adopting the methods of Genghis Khan. Defense Minister Israel Katz said openly that Israel will not allow the 600,000 Lebanese were forced to go north of the Litani River. It will not allow them to come back and destroy the villages as it did in Rafah and Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Now in Rafah and Khanuns in the Gaza Strip, Israel conducted a policy that is blatant war crime. I think it strengthened the accusation that it is committing a genocide because it's destroyed whole cities. The city of Rafah was a city of more than 200,000 people. It goes back in history 3,000 years ago and it was completely destroyed to the ground. These are in the last leader who adopted such methods in the Middle east was the grandson of Genghis Khan when he completely destroying Baghdad, the biggest city in the world then, and killing more than 100,000 people and leveling Baghdad to the ground. I think this is what Israel has done in Gaza, trying to force an ethnic cleansing of Gaza and now it is copying these methods to Lebanon. And this is the idea. And now even senior military commander of the Northern Command admitted even if Israel will reach the Litany river and ethnically cleanse this area, the missiles will keep going because Hezbollah is firing these missiles north of the Litany. And the only way to prevent Hezbollah from launching these missiles is to occupy the whole of Lebanon.

[Jamie Poisson]

And just. Roy, just to be clear, do you think there is a goal here to occupy the whole of Lebanon?

[Mehron Rapoport]

I think that the idea of occupying southern Lebanon is very strong and holding it for a very long period. There are also in the right wing, in the more religious right wing ideas that until the Litany is part greater Israel. So there are even plans to settlements in this area. At the moment it seems a little bit out of touch, but we have seen that the idea of settlements in the west bank was in the beginning seemed quite out of touch, but now we have a few hundreds of them. Dressing. Dressing. Oh, French dressing.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Exactly.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Oh, that's good.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

I'm A.J. jacobs and that is a little taste of our award winning podcast, hello Puzzlers, where we solve original audio puzzles with our celebrity guests, puzzle lovers like Ken Jennings, Jack Shepard And Roy Wood Jr. Are you looking for a daily dose of aha moments and laughs? Check us out at the hello Puzzlers podcast.

[Jamie Poisson]

IDF Chief Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir. Yeah. Has been warning about possible manpower collapse for the military due to all of these offensive and defensive military actions that are going on. I just like how urgent is that concern and what would that look like if his fears came true?

[Mehron Rapoport]

It's not clear if this warning was part of a political game or a real thing because there is an internal discussion, political discussion in Israel about the Haredim, the ultra orthodox, 90% of them do not serve in the army. And there is a huge political discussion in Israel. Well, the parties of the center right, center and center left demand that they will go to the army because there is such a shortage of soldiers in the army. So it's not clear if what Zamir said was part of this internal political issue, but it certainly represents a problem. Israel, it cannot control the Middle east, it cannot control Iran, it cannot occupy Iran, it can certainly cannot take Iran and, and Lebanon at the same time. It's still a small country, so it's certainly there are here limits and maybe Eyal Zamir echoed them. I think what happened after October 7, it was before the signs were before, but certainly after October 7, Netanyahu took off the table. Any option of a negotiated deal? I'm not talking about peace, just ceasefire deal, political deal with other parties in the Middle East. The strategy is now total security, meaning that if there's any threat, no matter where, in Iran, in Qatar, in Syria, in Lebanon, Israel will hit. And now Netanyahu Himself, but other also even talking about Turkey as the next opponent to fight. So once Israel set on this path of Super Sparta again, that's the word of Netanyahu. In another speech about a year ago, we said that Israel is a Super Sparta. If Israel is going on this path, one day or another, it will face this problem of shelters of soldiers.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants his nation to become a Super Sparta, a bastion of economic self sufficiency in the face of international pressure over the genocide in Gaza.

[Mehron Rapoport]

When Netanyahu talked about Super Sparta, he later tried to explain that he meant that it will be self sufficient on defense.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

We are going to produce an independent arms industry, very powerful, very strong, that can withstand any kind of international political constraints and will provide security for the State of Israel. This is what I envision for the state.

[Mehron Rapoport]

But when you say Super Sparta and Netanyahu is the son of an historian, it means a mentality that the whole society has one goal and that is to fight forever. That the goal of the society, that this society is being proved, prove itself when it is going to war.

[Jamie Poisson]

I want to pivot a little bit here and ask you about. We'll talk a little bit more about the Palestinians and perhaps we could start with this controversial new death penalty law.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

The man popping champagne is Israel's far right National Security Minister Itamar Benvir. And what he's celebrating is the death penalty. Specifically a new law that just passed Israel's parliament approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.

[Jamie Poisson]

It makes Israel has had the death penalty pretty much its entire existence as I understand it, although only for certain crimes. And it has hardly ever been. How is this new law that has made international headlines different?

[Mehron Rapoport]

It is true that Israel had death penalty from its very beginning. Death penalty exists also in the martial law which governed the Palestinian in the west bank and Gaza. But it was never used against Palestinian and it did not exist in the civil law. Now the difference is that it went into the civil law also not only in the military, there are also changes in the military. But the big issue is that in the civil law and also in the martial law, it is written that the death penalty will be applied only to those acting against Israel as a Jewish state. Now again, it was not written literally that it will be applied only against Palestinians. But this phrase definitely means that if an Israeli will murder Palestinian, as for example Baruch Goldstein in the tomb of the patriarch.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

On 25 February 1994, an American Israeli far right settler Baruch Goldstein entered the mosque during prayers and started shooting. He killed 29 worshippers and wounded nearly 200. He himself was chased down and beaten to death.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Then he will not be sentenced to death because although he killed Palestinian in prayer, he did not act against Israel as a Jewish state. This is, there's no other word than apartheid. Israel always fought this definition of apartheid, but. But there's really no other way to describe it now. It's in the, in the law itself and it's quite clear. But I think more than whether it will lead to execution and hanging of Palestinian, because it will be in with hanging. And that's the law says quite literally, I think shows where the atmosphere in Israel, the public atmosphere now in Israel. This law was passed with the majority, even parties of the, what is called the opposition voted for this law. And the fact that Itamar Bengavir, the Minister of National Security from the very extreme right, celebrated a law of that in the Knesset with trying to open a battle of champagne for that. And that's something that still if there is anything Jewish about this Jewish state, this goes against all Jewish values in the last 2000 years.

[Jamie Poisson]

You mentioned Ben Gvir, Israel's national security Minister, far right, ultranationalist. You know, I see that he wears like a new shaped lapel pin in Parliament. I saw a video he made in like an execution chamber as well. Yeah, kind of centered around this bill. I mean, this is all happening as monitoring groups have reported a spike in violence in the west bank, which I would also like to talk to you about. Violence from Israeli settlers towards Palestinians. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that since late February there have been 250 attacks on more than 100 Palestinian communities. At least seven Palestinians were killed by settlers in March, the highest monthly toll in years. The UN rights chief says 36,000 people have been displaced. And I wonder if you could just tell me more about what has been happening in the West Bank.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Yes, what's happening in the west bank is again a continuation of something that's going for years, but certainly since Bezaro Smotrich, the head of another extreme right party, has become his now finance minister, but also minister in the Ministry of Defense, responsible for the West Bank. He changed really a lot of rules and laws in order to widen the settlements. He gave a lot of money to small settlements, to illegal settlements, to all kind of farms where you have very few people that what they do actually is harassing and harass Palestinian communities. And what happened is that in the last few months these settlers are kind of copying what Israel did in Gaza of a policy of ethnic cleansing. Now, while in Gaza, it was done officially by the government, by the army. Here it is done by privately, I would say the ethnic cleansing was privatized. And they do it with, of course, the help of the army that supervise and does not interfere. But what they do is that they. They attack these communities. They. They open fire if they seem necessary for them, and they kill and, you know, they spread terror and many communities have left. What happened in the last few weeks is that it seems that they went a little bit too far by these attacks because they attacked also soldiers, because they attacked also Christian communities there. And there is a pressure from the American administration. And now in the last weeks, in the Israeli media, you talk more about them. They are named terrorists, these Jewish settlers. This is a term that is usually used only for Palestinian, not for Jews. So there is some kind of change of heart here. It has to be seen if it's a real change or only some kind of PR in order to satisfy the Americans.

[Jamie Poisson]

Okay, I just want to be clear about one thing. You said the escalation that or some of the escalation that we've seen is settlers attacking IDF soldiers, right?

[Mehron Rapoport]

Yes, they. Officially, the sovereign power in the west bank is the Israeli army. That's according to the Israeli law, because these areas were not annexed. So sometimes soldiers come and for example, when these settlers build another illegal settlement, another illegal farm, soldiers would come and dismantle it according to the laws of the martial laws that exist in the West Bank. So then they are being attacked.

[Jamie Poisson]

You know, Mehron, everything that we've talked about today, there is so much going on here. And you know, we've talked about Gaza throughout. We haven't even addressed that directly. Over the weekend, we saw an airstrike kill at least four Palestinians. According to medics. Israel said it was targeting a militant cell near its troop. But the ceasefire is very fragile, is my point, and the human situation there remains critical. What impact is all of what we have talked about today together taking on the politics of Israel?

[Mehron Rapoport]

Israel is experiencing a very politically, a very bizarre phenomenon that is maybe hard to understand from the outside. On the one hand, there is a wide sport for this part of mentality, for this Genghis Khan strategy. It is applied by the army without any hesitation. The war in Iran, that is, according to me, completely legal, is supported by so many Israelis. So on the other hand, Netanyahu himself, who is the instigator of these policies, is not enjoying it politically. He is viewed by Israelis as one who only cares about his political calculation, that he's doing all this to avoid going to prison. And there are supposed to be election on October 26 and is lagging very far behind. So it's quite peculiar that the acceptance of his ideology and strategy is not translated to political power or to political support. This is quite peculiar, but it is, it is going on for some years. So it does seem that this is here to stay.

[Jamie Poisson]

Okay, Mayeron, thank you as always for being here. Really appreciate it.

[Mehron Rapoport]

Thank you.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, that's all for for today. I'm Jamie Puel. And thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

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